According to this article if you want to save the planet you should stop eating lamb and drinking beer. Apparently 37lbs of carbon dioxide is generated to produce 2.2lbs of lamb. Producing pork and chicken on the other hand produces much less emissions. Alcoholic drinks also contribute to emissions with the growing and processing of hops producing 1.5 per cent of Britain’s greenhouse gases. mmm I was thinking of doing both of these things today.

According to this article around half of people who buy their groceries online receive the wrong items. A questionnaire found that 45% had at least one of their items substituted for another product and 15% received something they had not ordered. I have used the Sainsbury’s Online for about five years now and whilst it did used to be fairly unreliable with missed deliveries and broken down vans over the past couple years it has been quite good. I usually receive the correct items with few substitutes and can only ever remember receiving items I haven't ordered once. On that occasion I received a bag of cigarettes (I don’t smoke) but the situation was quickly resolved when I called the store and upon realising the mistake they collected them and brought my bag of shopping in its place.

It could be bad news for tea drinkers if this article is to believed. It suggests that the price of a a cup of tea could rise by as much as 15%. The price rise comes as a combination of rising demand, crop failures and the weak pound. It could mean that leading brands such as PG Tips will increase their prices as much as 50p on a pack of 160 tea bags. Unilever which makes PG Tips has said that it can no longer absorb the extra cost of making tea bags due to increases in commodity costs and that it will need to pass the rises onto consumers.

This is interesting its about a fitness instructor who decided to embark on an experiment to try and help him understand his obese customers. Paul James decided that the best way to try and understand the problems facing obese people who want to lose weight was to become like them. Once super fit he now weighs in at 20 stones after giving up his healthy lifestyle. Previously he weighed 12.5 stone and lived on a diet of lean meat and grill fish with vegetables. His new diet of chocolate, biscuits and fizzy drinks, however, has definitely taken its toll. He started the experiment on New Years Day and on the 1st of July will start a healthy diet and exercise programme to get back in shape. It will be interesting to revisit this story towards the end of year and see how easy he finds it.

According to this article the British are the angriest people in Europe with the average British person getting angry four times a day. In comparison Italians get angry an average of three and half times a day, the French three times a day and people living in Sweden, Norway and Denmark just once every five days. Apparently the things that annoy British people most are traffic jams, rude service in shops, foreign call centres and ill mannered neighbours. The Italians are most annoyed by bad driving and the French by bad service in restaurants. I don’t think I have felt angry yet today, so I guess I have four more times left.

This strange looking fruit is a Kumato. It’s basically a new variety of tomato which originates from the wild tomato. Unlike normal tomatoes it can be eaten even when it is still green. Apparently when still green it has a mild taste and is good for slicing. As it ripens to a dark brown it is sweeter and slightly spicy and is good in salads. When it finally develops a dark red colour it becomes much sweeter than the conventional tomato. The kumato will go on sale at 50 Marks and Spencer stores from next Monday priced at £2.49 per pack.

I am frequently amazed at my cats climbing ability and the places they manage to end up. My cats, however, have a fair way to go to match this cat who can scale a stone wall. The cat called Charlie manages to climb a sheer 13 foot wall in order to get into his home which is on the second floor. You can see him in action left but to fully appreciate the skill that is spider cat you really need to see the video.

According to this article eating honey can shorten the length of a cold by two days. A trial was conducted on 60 patients who were recruited within 24 hours of them catching a cold. All the patients were given traditional therapies such as decongestants and drugs to lower the temperature but half were also given four tablespoons of honey a day. At the end of the study the researchers found that the patients who had been given the honey had recovered from their colds much more quickly than the others showing a significant difference in the duration of all the symptoms. I will have to remember this, next time I am suffering with a cold.

If you are looking for a bargain then you might want to check the Penny Bazaar promotion which starts today at M&S to celebrate their 125th birthday. The promotion runs from today for three days and during that time they are offering a range of products at only a penny each. The promotion runs in store only and customers can choose up to five products each. Every penny donated will go to the M&S 125 charity challenge which aims to raise £125 million for charities between May and September.

This is an interesting idea, its a computer that could make it impossible for drivers to exceed the speed limit. It works by pinpointing the vehicles location by satellite and accessing a database detailing the roads speeds limit to determine how fast the vehicle should be travelling. The device then limits the cars speed to prevent it going any faster than the speed limit. If the vehicle should leave a 40pmh zone and drive into a 30mph zone the device is able to compensate for this and will gradually slow the car down until it is within the speed limit. The device will be trialled in the summer by TFL when a fleet of cars, buses and black cabs will be fitted with it. TFL believe that it could potentially cut accidents by around 10 per cent. It will be interesting to see how the trial goes.

This fox cub had to be rescued by the RSPCA after he got his head stuck in a glass jar. The cub had licked the contents from the glass jar but then found he could not get his head out again. He was found in a garden in Ilford and animal officers were called who removed the jar from his head. After being sprayed with water to cool him down, he was released apparently none the worse for his adventure.

According to this article it is a particularly good year for dandelions. The combination of lots of rain followed by sunny days seems to have created the ideal growing conditions for the weed. My garden definitely backs up the theory. As quickly as I dig the plants out, more seems to take their place. I am starting to wonder whether I should just leave them there and try to use them for something. Apparently they are quite nice in salads.

We all know that the office fridge can house many dubious items which often sit around way past their use by date. One office block in California had a fridge that smelt so bad it caused a chemical alert. Hundreds of staff were evacuated from the office block after foul smells caused many staff to vomit. Emergency staff including 18 fire engines and ambulances were dispatched to deal with the incident. When they got there, however, they found that the fumes were coming from a fridge on the second floor. The door had been opened by a cleaning lady who had started to clean up the left over food. As the smell had spread and mixed with the vapours from cleaning fluids it had gradually moved throughout the building making the workers sick. The lady cleaning the fridge was suffering from a nasal allergy and could smell nothing. In all 325 employees were evacuated with 28 needing medical attention.

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